Wild Reckless (Harper Boys #1)(58)
“No, no. I know, I was just curious,” I say, leaving my gaze on her. I bite at the inside of my mouth, a little nervous to push our friendship. “Have you and Jess….you know?”
I know she knows what I mean. I can tell by the way her eyebrows flare quickly, and the way she adjusts her grip on the steering wheel.
“Uhm, you did only kiss him, right? I mean…was there…more?” she asks, and I correct this quickly.
“Yeah, I mean no. I mean…yes, just a kiss. We just kissed,” I say. My armpits are actually sweating, and my chest is pounding, I’m so uncomfortable. I’ve only ever talked about things like this with Gaby. She had a lot of…experience, clearly more than I was aware of, and now she’s gone. And I have so many questions. “It’s just…I like him, Will. I like him…a lot. I’m pretty sure I’ve never liked a boy like this. No…I know I haven’t. And he’s…”
“You’re afraid he’s going to try to push you too fast?” she asks, and I feel silly just hearing it out loud.
“Oh wow. I’m seriously living an after-school special, huh? Uhhhhhhg!” I say, throwing my face in my hands. I feel a little ridiculous, and presumptuous that I’m even thinking about things like Owen and sex at all. But I am. I’m thinking about it, about a me and Owen, down the road, when sex might enter into the picture. And when I think of that, I start to think that for him—a guy like Owen—sex is probably already in the picture. And then I replay that thing he said, the night at the party, when he accused me of having a problem with people having sex. I’m such a f*cking prude!
“I just like him, Will. I like him a lot, and I’ve never…” All of my attention goes to my lap, to my fingers that I’m picking at, to my knee bouncing up and down.
“This summer,” she says, and I stop breathing, waiting for the rest. “Jess and me, our first time was this summer. I wanted to wait. And really?” She pauses, looking to the left at our school while we wait at the light, Jess’s car parked in its usual spot. “I wanted to wait more. I mean…I don’t regret it. But I wasn’t really ready.”
“Oh,” I say, sucking in my lip hard, not sure what to say next.
“It got better. And we’re careful, and we…we’re, I don’t know, active? Boy, that sounds really f*cking clinical, doesn’t it? We do it, sometimes? And I’m glad it was Jess, that he was my first,” she says, her lips curving into a smile when we see him standing at the curb, waiting for her to pull in. “But you don’t have to, you know?”
“But there have been so many. Haven’t there? I mean, Owen and girls…” I say as she puts the car in park.
“Probably. But, really, what do I know? Maybe he just makes out and kisses, and that’s it,” she says, pausing in the quiet of her car for a few seconds before we both break into hysterical laughter. “Yeah, probably not!”
We both laugh hard while we gather our things, but my laughter dies down quickly, my thoughts going right back to that kiss, how it felt, and how different a boy like Owen is from the safety of group dates and school functions I was used to before.
I trail behind Willow and Jess along the walkway, and am about to step into the band room, when I notice someone sitting on the tables nearby. Owen’s hands are wrapped around a paper cup steaming with coffee, his fingers poking through black cut-off gloves; a beanie is pulled over his dark hair.
“Kinda early today, aren’t you?” I ask, my fingers instinctively moving to my hair, tucking it behind my ear—a nervous tick in his company, and my face is blushing at the sight of him. He looks up, his lips puckered while he blows over the top of the hot liquid in his cup, the steam making small swirls in front of his lips. The way they slide so naturally into a smile erases every tiny worry I let in during my car ride with Willow. The way his face lights up when he sees me—when he sees me—that’s enough.
Right now, the way he looks right now, is enough.
“It was weird, I had these awful stomach pains, like someone…poisoned me,” he teases, his eyebrows lowered while he stares at me, his legs stretching out slowly as he stands.
“Damn. You’re on to us. My mother and I are black widows, with a trail of high school boys and men buried in yards all over Illinois,” I say, finishing my last word just before Owen’s arm sweeps me into his chest, the softness of his coat backed by the hardness of his body, every single inch of him warm.
“Kens, trust me, you buried me a long time ago,” he says, his lips kissing the top of my head, his arm holding me tight to him. This is where I want to be for the rest of the morning. And I am his just a little more.
“I have to go to band,” I groan, and he squeezes one last time before letting me go, the cool air wrapping around me the second his arm leaves my body. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s cool. I figured I’d just come early, see if I could see you,” he says, and his cheeks—they actually blush. “I had to drop Andrew off early. He’s doing this robotics thing.”
“Oh,” I say, my smile caught in my teeth, my tummy fluttering. “Will I be seeing you in class today, Mr. Harper?”
“Yes, Miss Worth. I will be attending class this week. In fact, I should be here every day, from now on,” he says. “Sort of quit the job that tried to arrest me for paying for something,” he says, his eyes gliding down my body, to my wrist, where my gift still circles my arm. I haven’t taken it off since he gave it to me, even when my mom raised an eyebrow when I told her it was a gift from Owen.